The one I played live with was a one-stringed-diddleybow.

I build her using a small cigarbox and a 900mm broomstick. I had an old guitartuner laying around and used that one too. The first problem I ran into was that the string cut through the tailpiece. I solved this by drilling a new 4mm hole straight trough the broomstick and put a piece of coppertubing in this hole. This kind of tubing you find in central-heatings as the thermocouple. The string then goes through the coppertube and can't cut into the wood of the tailpiece anymore !

The second problem I had to solve was the poor quality of sound. To try to improve the sound I made a big round hole in the body and used a paint-can-lid as a resonator. The brass bridge I moved also to that resonator, and I glued a piezo-pickup directly to the bottom of the paint-can-lid and tried to insulate it acoustic from the rest by using some siliconekit.

The results can be heared at the CBG-forum as you know! I used her live two times, the public was very enthousiastic, but I think it was'nt a real succes, because there was too much feedback and too much microphonic effects. I called her "mien Maidje" and got realy addicted to play the blues on her! Then, oh trouble trouble trouble, she got that terrible fatall accident. It was late in the evening and we had a deep going blues ecperiance. Then the beer worked to strong on my bladder, so I had to go to the toilet.

click image for larger view

Tried to lay her on the table but I stumbled over the cord. She falled on the floor and the box exploded into a 100 pieces! That was the end of "mien maidje", so I had to design a complete new Driesbow, if possible with handwounded pickup, and back to the basic, just a nice plank of oakwood, sorry NO Cigar Box.

Within now and a few months I'm gonna build me a thing like that, make a lot of photo's, make some recordings and keep You all informed !

- Gitaardrieske
email: driesbow@zonnet.nl